In the last episode, we discussed alternative assets, and in this episode, we take a deep dive into the career of Chris Powers, the master of one specific alternative asset: real estate. Chris began his real estate career when he was just 17 years old and has spent the last 17 years building Fort Capital, a real estate firm in Fort Worth, Texas. Chris was a hungry 17-year-old, just showed up at college, bought his first house with no money down in 2004. By the time he left college, he had 12 houses. Fast forward to 2021, just this year, along with investors, they purchased $500 million of industrial real estate in Texas. Throughout the episode, we discuss Chris’s journey in real estate, investing, recruiting, and podcasting.

We started the conversation by asking Chris who his heroes are. He shared the story of his father who went back to college to pursue medicine even after being a lawyer for 13 years. His dad taught him the valuable lessons that you only live one life and that money can only make you so happy.

Chris bought his first house at 17 when he was starting college and got into real estate as a means to make money during his studies. He was driven by constantly waking up and feeling behind and wanting to do something. Before graduating, he bought more student housing, started a property management business, and started a leasing business. He graduated in 2008, during the economic collapse, and had no choice but to continue in real estate.

From 2010 to 2015, Chris was doing a bit of everything related to real estate – he was building custom homes and spec homes, buying land, VC investing, and had a small team that he managed. Despite having some success, he realized he wasn’t compounding his business the way he wanted. Reading Good to Great by Jim Collins motivated him to narrow the focus of his business.

Chris talks about his need to be able to recruit and the importance of having a mission. We also discuss how flywheels can propel us forward, and for Chris, his flywheel is based on his podcast, Twitter, real estate business, and investors that create a virtuous cycle of growth.

Recently, Chris has transitioned out of being the CEO of Fort Capital, and he is learning how to be an owner. He is also focusing on his VC Funds and building Powers Capital, which he says will function like a family office but also will function like private equity. We wrap up the conversation discussing when enough is enough and measuring impact; Chris says he’s no longer in it for the money but rather to see what it is possible to accomplish during the one life he has.

Links:

Chris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fortworthchris

The Fort Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4dLKPVTiXWmrFwd43iN2LZ

Chris Powers & Pete Chambers Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2X8vKyUIQaIxV5Mr9J5KMv

Good to Great by Jim Collins:

https://amzn.to/3yJV9Jc

Owned and Operated Podcast w/ Chris Powers: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/21-chris-powers-building-%24600mm-commercial-real-estate/id1560999545?i=1000527344852

Fort Ventures: https://www.fort-ventures.com/

On Deck: https://beondeck.com/

Token Economy - How the Web3 Reinvents the Internet by Shermin Voshmgir:

https://amzn.to/3mpmHi7

Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed:

Mitchell Baldridge: Defeating Taxes, Crypto & Financial Planning

Codie Sanchez: Drug Cartels, Vanguard, and Goldman Sachs

Nick Huber: How to Build Leverage, Buy Businesses, and Go Viral on Twitter

If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:

>> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/

>> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media

>> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners

>> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa

>> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson

>> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage

I appreciate your support!

This week’s guest is David Perell. David is a creator, a writer, and a teacher at his massively successful online writing course, called Write of Passage. The success of his course gave me inspiration for my own course, and gives me fundamental optimism about the future of education. David and I have been friends for years, so this is less of an interview and more of a one-sided hang-session, where I get the pleasure of drawing out new ideas and experiences from David that I haven’t heard before. This is... basically what it’s like to hang out with us in person, and I’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing or not :). David is a man of endless-energy. He is reference-rife and story-stacked. I always have a great time talking with David, and I welcome you to join the conversation.

As always, additional resources to enrich your experience below:

Topics Covered:

• The upcoming Porter Robinson documentary that David is working on.
• How David applied the ideas of Peter Thiel to... everything in life
• How to learn writing the fun way (less grammar more jammin)
• Mental models for building successful products and companies
• What it means for something to “move” us
• The most interesting modern art form of today
• What deliberate consumption looks like

Additional Resources:

• The Economy is Mind-Bogglingly Huge — Eric Jorgenson
• Practice Analytically, Perform Intuitively - David Perell
• My Principles of Company Building - David Perell
• Peter Thiel's Religion - David Perell
• Saving the Liberal Arts - David Perell
• David's Essays
• Write of Passage Course
• David's Twitter
• David’s Newsletter
• Eric Jorgenson Newsletter
• Eric Jorgenson Twitter

Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed:

Solocast: Metagames, Feedback Loops and Transcending The Muggle World

• Joe Hertler: Tapping Into Creative Genius & Pursuing Joy Through Creativity

Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).

If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:

>> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/

>> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media

>> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners

>> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa

>> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson

>> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter

>> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage

I appreciate your support!

Just me and you today, dear listener -- and I’m going to talk through some ideas that have been fascinating me recently, weaving together authors like Rory Sutherland, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Nassim Taleb. As I reviewed my highlights from books, blogs and articles that I’ve been collecting over the past 10 years the main ideas that jumped out at me are playing the metagame and feedback loops. Both of these are ways to transcend the muggle world and start playing a different game.

I hope you enjoy this format -- if you love it (or hate it, actually), please tweet or email me so I know whether to ever do this again. It’s all part of the sandbox experience!

Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:

Topics Covered:

• What are Metagames
• How Metagames change the game and allow you to dominate
• What are feedback loops
• Why we accept false barriers to cushion our egos
• Places to intervene in a system
• The power of transcending paradigms
• How a system can be destroyed by ignoring feedback
• How to expand your theoretical fish tank

Favorite Quotes:

“In any system where there are norms, there are strengths and weaknesses to those norms. If you follow the norms of the system, the results you get are likely to be the norm. When you play a different game, a metagame, you have the opportunity to outperform.” -fs.blog

“Play the metagame in your domain too, whether you’re head of an organization or just starting out. Blowout the walls of your fish tank and transcend paradigms.” - Eric Jorgenson

“False barriers are accepted because they are the path of least resistance for the ego” -Eric Jorgenson

Additional Resources:

• Alchemy Rory Sutherland
• Moneyball Michael Lewis
• Inadequate Equilibria Eliezer Yudkowsky
• Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Systemantics. The Systems Bible John Gall and D.H. Gall
• User Friendly Cliff Kuang
• Structures J. E. Gordon
• Mike Barton Runs England’s Best Police Force. What Sets Him Apart?
• Readwise
• Eric Jorgenson Newsletter
• Eric Jorgenson Leverage Course

Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed:

• Codie Sanchez: Learning Leverage From Drug Cartels, Vanguard, And Goldman Sachs
• Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life

Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).

If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:

>> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/

>> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media

>> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners

>> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donati...

Today, we’re kicking off a new long-term segment, called Track Zach -- my buddy Zach Marshall just founded a company called Conterra, and is about 3 months into the journey. I plan to have a conversation with him every 3 months or so to get a real-time, much more honest, interesting look at startup life. Zach, now in his second career after the Navy SEALs, is setting his considerable will against a new challenge -- starting a venture-backed company to fix today’s outdated, broken system for hiring private security around the world. Enjoy the ride!

If you’re not on my email list, fix that asap by going to ejorgenson.com -- I share weekly blog posts, podcast highlights, and new exciting new projects!

Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:

Topics Covered:

• What drives someone to become a Navy SEAL
• What is private security?
• Conterra: the private security marketplace
• How Conterra is going to revolutionize a $50 billion dollar industry labor marketplace for private security industry
• The current state of Conterra and where it’s going

Favorite Quotes:

• “In the military you have to learn things extremely fast and not just to pass a test, now you are responsible for these things. For example a skydiver in charge of a civilian drop in a stadium is coordinating all sorts of things and he has 10,000, maybe 5,000 jumps. Meanwhile I had to do the same thing in the service and I had around 65 jumps.” - Zach
• “In the military you’re just given this massive amount of responsibility so you have to actually pay attention to every detail. Attention to detail is one of those phrases said thousands and thousands of times in the spec ops community and it really is true.” - Zach

Additional Resources:

• Conterra
• Email Zach: [email protected]
• Eric Jorgenson Newsletter
• Eric Jorgenson Leverage Course

Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed:

• Andrew Wilkinson: Investing vs. Operating, De-risking Leverage, and The Best Part About Business
• Nick Huber: How to Leverage Twitter, an Abundance Mindset, and A Love of Chaos
• Andrew Finn of WaitButWhy: How To Acquire A Free Company And Knowing When To Eat A Shitburger

Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).

If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:

>> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/

>> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media

>> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners

>> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa

>> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson

>> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter

>> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage

I appreciate your support!

Today, I’m talking with my new Capital Camp buddy Andrew Finn. He is the co-founder of the blog Wait But Why. Since age 25 he’s been patiently building, buying, and operating small businesses. Now, he and Tim Urban share a portfolio of cash-flowing small businesses. Together we discuss how to get a free company, why it is often easier to buy a company than build it, and when to eat a shitburger. Enjoy these topics and countless others on this episode of Jorgenson’s Soundbox.

Additional resources to help enrich your experience below:

Topics Covered:

• How to get a “free” business
• What a $100,000 failure in early stage podcasting looked like
• Why it’s easier to buy a company than build a company
• Why “doing it later” is a risk and the opportunity cost that comes with it
• The importance of judgement and getting experience making ‘real decisions’
• How to be a legitimate player in “the game”
• An illustration of a jobless renegade pirate’s day looks like
• Eating shitburgers, and how to know when to stop

Favorite Quotes:

• “If I do all this maneuvering, find this company, sell at this price, sell some debt and get some money. In 5 years it’ll be like poof here’s a free company and I get my money back.” - Andrew Finn
• “Your job is not to win the SMB game, it’s to win the game. It’s to win the game of money in a way that will benefit your life. Like, we’re invested in crypto, and the stock market too.”
• “All service businesses are chicken, just as much as software. You pay someone $X. Resell their time for $X + $Y. And the entirety of the business is justifying and expanding Y to both customers and workers. Y comes from well managed opex, capex, and organization structure. To do it well, you have to just laser focus on what you're providing in exchange for Y. The market gets pissed long-term if it doesn't feel like you're providing enough, and every day it conspires to ask you the question.” - Andrew’s Twitter

Additional Resources:

• Wait But Why
• Andrew Finn’s Personal Blog
• G64ventures - Andrew’s holding company
• Andrew Finn Linkedin
• Jorgenson Leverage Course

Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed:

• Andrew Wilkinson: Investing vs. Operating, De-risking Leverage, and The Best Part About Business
• Nick Huber: How to Leverage Twitter, an Abundance Mindset, and A Love of Chaos
• Sky King: The Next Level of the Internet, Decentralization, and Becoming a Player in the Game of Life

If you enjoy podcasts with Brent Beshore of Permanent Equity or Patrick O’Shaughnessy, you’re going to love this one!

Huge thanks to Modern Stoa (modernstoa.co) for their help on creating and growing this very podcast you’re listening to now. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization, go to modernstoa.co or hit the founder up on Twitter (@consumersky) or Instagram (@iamaskyking).

If you want to support the podcast, here are a few ways you can:

>> Buy a copy of the Navalmanak: www.navalmanack.com/

>> Share the podcast with your friends and on social media

>> Give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners

>> Make a weekly, monthly, or one-time donation: https://app.omella.com/o/9Bufa

>> Follow me on Twitter: @ericjorgenson

>> Follow @FirstsFamous on Twitter

>> Learn more and sign up for the “Building a Mountain of Levers” course and community: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage

I appreciate your support!